Science Fiction for Old Farts

Archive for the ‘movies’ Category

I’ve got a whole slew of neat finds that have just been added to the movies and television shows section of the channel.

Headliner films include – Day of the Triffids, When Worlds Collide and Earth vs The Flying Saucers, while tv shows include Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Fireball XL5 (the show that really got me going on SF waaaaay back in the day).

Throw some logs on the fireplace, pop up some popcorn and settle in with that favorite blanket! Me – I’m working my way through Fireball XL5 and the amazing adventures of Steve Zodiac, Venus, Professor Mat Matic and Robbie the Robot!

Ha! In honor of the crappy re-makes that Hollywood keeps on turning out (and budgeting over and over and over again) – don’t you think the word we use to describe these things ought to be “re-tread”? (captures the cheap, shoddy, will fall apart within the first ten minutes feel), I just finished a re-make of the Classic Science Fiction Channel’s ‘moving images’ page.

The page was originally all text links. Now I’ve replaced the text links with film posters and title screen images. Too bad there isn’t an industry standard size for these advertisements. If they were all the same size, the page would look really cool. As it is, I think it still looks pretty cool.

Besides, there’s just something right about sticking a poster for Skiffy Tube’s short-lived Flash Gordon series next to one for Plan 9 From Outer Space…

I’ll probably re-make the radio show page next. What I’d really like to do is find a book cover for each of the episodes that are based on a short story – but in most cases such covers aren’t available: most of these shorts appeared in pulp magazines and more often than not they weren’t the cover stories. But have no fear, I’ll figure something out.

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Warning – this is going to be a multi-post day (including pictures of the snow that is keeping me inside) – so check back often!

Upcoming: the C’s from the continuing series of reviewing the reviewers (getting a lot of comments and emails on that one) – which includes my massively brilliant solution for those bloggers who are ‘nervous’ about their upcoming review – and – snow pictures!

In contemplating the 2008 version of The Day The Earth Stood Still, earlier remakes (War of the Worlds, The Thing, Dune, Flash Gordon) and future ones (Forbidden Planet, When Worlds Collide, others), I suddenly started asking myself – just exactly what are these things?

This led to a re-examination of both the type (and the presumed intent) of such movies, and I thought I’d share some of those thoughts with you all.

To begin – do those words that are used to describe a new version of an old product all mean the same thing? To me, they don’t.

A ‘re-do’, in my mind, is reminscent of the ages-old do-over. As in “I made a mistake and invoke my god-given right to change my mind”. Inherent in the concept of do-overs is fairness, the knowledge that games and make-believe don’t follow the same laws of physics as the real world and most important of all, the recognition that one has taken the wrong path and needs to change direction.

I can think of a few films in dire need of a ‘do-over’ (an act if properly handled that would erase the memory of the original and replace it with the new): Logan’s Run springs immediately to mind.

But I also have a problem with ‘re-do’s because they also imply that there was something wrong with the first incarnation. Something so utterly wrong that everyone wishes it had never been.

Regardless of how awful some SF films are, there are very few that should be entirely eliminated from existence.

So we’ll throw that one out of the lexicon and concentrate on the other, generally more popular, phrases – re-make, re-boot and re-imagining.

To my mind, a ‘re-make’ implies that it’s going to be exactly like the original. Exactly. Maybe different actors, maybe a green screen instead of a traveling matte, maybe a computer-controllled camera instead of an elaborate set of wires and tracks – but in terms of the sequence of the scenes, the dialogue and the story – exactly the same.

I’ve yet to see a ‘re-make’.

Re-boot is a new phrase that’s been bandied about mostly in light of two The Hulk movies inside of two years. Hollywood doesn’t like to point fingers (a week from now you’ll be the pointee as opposed to the pointer), but they sure do know euphamism, and I strongly suspect that ‘re-boot’ actually means – those other guys really fucked up, now we’re going to do it right.

It’s also been applied to the Batman movies – which I think is inappropriate since there wasn’t anything really wrong with the first set of films. The comics industry used a phrase something like ‘a new take’ when introducing the Dark Knight to fans who’d been familiar with the old-style batman. The only real difference between the two (other than the artwork) was, we found out how angry Bruce Wayne/Batman really is.

Anger expressed does not a new phrase deserve.

It’s also been applied to Battlestar Galactica – but is once again inappropriate. There we went from a television show poorly designed to try and appeal to adults and children alike – to a television show designed to show everyone that people in space still get horny.

Re-boot does mean ‘start over from scratch’ in computer parlance; take the system down to the core and make it start again. Re-load everything, wipe the arrays clean and fill them up with new data.

I’ve yet to see a real re-boot when it comes to film. Batman still wears a cowl. Galactica is still a gigantic space-going aircraft carrier that disobeys the laws of physics. The Hulk is still green.

Re-imagine comes closest to what most people would LIKE new versions of old films to be. This works much better in the literary world than it does in film. A re-imaginging of a story can contemplate putting Batman in a leisure suit, painting the Hulk pink, allowing humans to have sex with robots during prime time or a Gort that is 30 feet tall rather than merely ten feet tall.

But what’s the point? I mean, if you really want to justify a pink Hulk – wouldn’t it be far easier to create your own story from scratch that features a ‘hulk-like’ being? Doing so gives you the freedom to discard whatever you don’t like about the old Hulk and the freedom to add whatever you want to add without having to worry about a bunch of fans getting upset over the timeline or history of a fictional character. No need to create alternate realities that came into existence during the nuclear blast that created the Hulk (one green, the other pink: I forget – is that still the origin story?), or worry about keeping ten-million other re-imaginings straight while you search for something unique.

I could go for ‘enhancement’ – a word that would cover such things as the umpteenth director’s cut of Blade Runner as well as such interesting work as Giorgio Moroder’s Metropolis (new music and a couple of colorized scenes – about as minimalist as you can get, while still arguably adding something new to the canon).

I find it hard to find any justification for any of these ‘re’s, with the possible exception of the do-over. And do-overs don’t happen in real life.

I’ve been without the internet or cable all day. Most of our area is also without power, but fortunately not our house. No. Not our house.

Instead, we had about two feet of water in the basement.

The dog refused to go outside, which added to everyone’s woes.

I was supposed to edit a clip from William Gray – he reprises the role of Sam Jaffe in The Day The Earth Stood Still – the raw clip is up on YouTube (it has a long, blank intro that I need to chop out).

Those who haven’t been paying attention will want to know that William ‘Billy’ Gray played Bobby Benson in the original TDTESS.

I was supposed to go and see the re-make – but ‘no power’ means no movie.

Instead, the wife and I went calling on local friends who were out of touch, making sure they were staying warm and were still alive.

Below are a bunch of images we took of the aftermath of the ice storm.

Things should return to normal tomorrow.

Bo is not frozen – but he does seem a bit humiliated. And no, we didn’t make him wear the hat because he wouldn’t go outside. We made him wear the hat because we can.

The article you are looking for can be found HERE on the new version of my blog.

Please update your links and readers. Thank you.

I was hoping that William Gray’s answers to my questions would go up yesterday, the actual The Day The Earth Stood Still To Watch The Original Movie Day – but a mistaken read of his original email response led me to believe that he wasn’t interested in answering questions. My fault. I thought I had things covered in the comprehension department, but I guess not.

Anyway. Who is Wiliam Gray and why does what he have to say about The Day The Earth Stood Still have any importance?

Because William Gray is Billy Gray – the actor who starred alongside Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal in the movie, playing Bobby Benson, that’s why!

I haven’t done extensive research, but I believe that Mr. Gray is the last surviving member of the original movies’ cast.

I was therefore kind of surprised that no one had bothered to get in touch with Mr. Gray regarding the remake. I waited to see if anyone would – but such never materialized, so I decided to give it a go myself. A brief search revealed his website – www.billygray.com – and this picture right up front:

Given his caption, I figured there was a decent chance he’d be willing to answer questions – and he was.

COF: You display the above picture on your website and caption it as your favorite. What was it about that photo/scene that makes it your favorite?

Billy Gray: The acting

(I gather that Billy is referring to the sense of awe and wonder that Bobby is displaying – the same expression we all had when watching the movie for the first time.)

COF: Were you eager for the role, or was it ‘just another job’?

BG: The Latter

COF: Who among the cast and crew stood out, and why?

BG: Robert Wise, because he was so nice.

(Robert Wise was the director)

COF: When you read the script, did you get its ‘message’? Did you think of it as a ‘red scare’ film at the time?

BG: I didn’t get ‘the message’. I don’t think it was a ‘red scare’ film.

COF: Did you think the GORT mock up was ‘creepy’ or ‘keen’?

BG: It was just a prop to me

COF: Were you a science fiction fan at the time the movie was made?

BG: Not then and not now.

(Oh well…can’t have everything)

COF: What did you take away from the experience of making this movie that has stayed with you?

BG: The ‘diamonds’. But somehow I lost them

COF: How many times have you watched the original version of the movie?

BG: About two dozen times and it still holds up, but I don’t remember seeing it when it first came out.

COF: What are your thoughts about the remake?

BG: What balls! or it might be just mindless cashing in on the movie’s good rep. We’ll see.

People should support the Nuclear Threat Initiative: What with all the mad men in the world: 57 years later – it is still the most important movie ever made and should be required to be viewed and discussed, in school, by all, by the seventh grade!

Mr. Gray closed with this post script: All the press the title is getting will mean that the first one will be REVISITED on DVD and that is GOOD! SO IT DOSN’T MATTER IF THE NEW ONE IS JUST FOR GREED OR NOT.

I think Mr. Gray has a bit of a sense of humor (what did you take away from the film – the diamonds: lol) but I think it is also pretty obvious that despite the distance of 57 years, the experience has stayed with him.

Mr. Gray continued acting for a number of years, appearing (according to IMDB) in The Vampyre Wars as recently as 1996. He is probably best known for his portrayal of ‘Bud’ in the 50s classic television series ‘Father Knows Best’.

He is also the inventor of the ‘F1’ guitar pick and spent a number of years as a Class A motorcycle racer. Given the other links on his website and the invention of the pick, I’m going to guess that he also has a thing for surf music…

I really appreciated William giving me the time to answer a few questions regarding TDTESS. I hope to follow-up after he’s had a chance to see the remake.

And – Klaatu? Bobby lost his diamonds. Do you think you could give him a couple more?

Tomorrow, the remake hits the theaters. I’ll be going and will be doing a review. I’m going to try my best to deliver an unbiased take on it – and I hope the rest of you all chime in and let me know whether I did or not.